


Written

by entanglednow



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-04-04
Updated: 2009-04-04
Packaged: 2017-10-15 03:16:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,301
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/156472
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/entanglednow/pseuds/entanglednow
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The world isn't fair so it doesn't stop, it keeps turning, keeps pushing, always pushing when Dean doesn't want to be pushed; doesn't think he can be pushed any further.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Written

Dean's been staring at the ceiling for a while, when he remembers.

He leans over the side of the bed, drops an arm and turns his jacket over, spreads the inside open. He finds the folded line of white, which crinkles under his fingers, when he drags it out of the pocket.

  
~~~

  
 _"I want to give you something."_

 _Dean raises an eyebrow but Chuck doesn't look happy about it. Instead he looks uncomfortable, almost apologetic._

 _"Yeah?" Dean lifts his shoulders, and waits, not sure if he should be curious or suspicious._

 _Chuck doesn't move for a second, and Dean thinks maybe he's going to have to prod him again. But suddenly he exhales, steps to the side and digs something out from under a stack of books. Three pieces of paper, folded shabbily, messily, and creased at the corners, like they were hidden in a hurry. Chuck looks down at what he holds, then frowns, and there's a long pause before he finally offers it, expression awkward._

 _Like he doesn't really want to give it to him._

 _Like maybe he thinks he shouldn't._

 _When Dean's fingers pull he lets them go, lets them go and pulls his hands back, like he might try and snatch it back again, but isn't quite brave enough._

 _Dean's hand unfolds the paper automatically, but Chuck clears his throat, loudly._

 _"You might want to-" Chuck pushes a hand into his pocket. "You might want to leave it until- to leave it until you're on your own, you might want to read it then." He meets Dean's eyes, and there's something there, something Dean's not sure if he's supposed to get or not. But then Chuck looks away._

 _Dean stares at him for a second, then folds the paper and pushes it into the inside pocket of his coat._

 _Chuck swallows._

 _"Look, I just- I write what I write, you know that."  
_

~~~

  
Dean rolls his head to the side, Sam's asleep, face turned into the pillow like he's trying to hide there. He hasn't moved for a long time.

Dean takes a breath and very slowly, quietly, unfolds the pages, the fold creases are deep enough to feel under his fingertips. He'll be honest and admit to himself that he's scared, really scared about what he's going to find. Of what could possibly be worse than everything they've already been through.

Reading it after it's happened is one thing, reading it before is something entirely different. He wants to believe that nothing could be as bad as he expects. He wants to believe that whatever is on the page, whatever they have to face next, he can do it, _they_ can do it.

The light is just bright enough for Dean to see by, the flickering slide shift of red and green letters that shine in the motel window. Dean tips the paper until the letter's lay stark against the white.

It's not about Sam.

It's not about the apocalypse at all.

It's about Castiel.

And it's about him.

It's a tangled, untidy mess of words, like it was written out in a hurry, and never properly edited. Lines break and start somewhere new, then repeat, like there was too _much_ of it, like none of the words are quite good enough. There are gaps, pieces crossed out in pen, crossed out angrily, frustratedly. What Dean can see underneath the long blue lines doesn't make sense, doesn't fit. And then it just...stops.

Dean reads it twice more.

Then he just stares at the page, and he can hear himself breathing. Though it sounds like someone else.

He drags his thumb over the typed letters, like he can smear the ink, take out the words under sweat and dirt. Like perhaps they're not quite real at all. But they stay.

This isn't the same as everything else. This isn't _'go here,' 'do this', 'kill this,' 'stop the freakin' apocalypse.'_

This makes a _fucking joke_ out of free will.

Laying in his hand like he knows what to do with it. Like he can change it. He folds it angrily, it tears on two edges, tiny little pieces of sound. He folds it as small as it will go, a wedge of stark white that he presses down again, and again.

As it is written.

And suddenly the room's too small, and he can't breathe, can't breathe at all. He shoves his way out of bed, falls all the way to the door and slips through it.

  
~~~

  
It's freezing outside, air like a slap against his face. It slices all the way through him when he breathes. But that's good, in some way he can't quite define.

Like maybe if he stayed out here long enough, he could make things stop.

But the world doesn't stop. The world isn't fair so it doesn't stop, it keeps turning, keeps pushing, always pushing when Dean doesn't want to be pushed; doesn't think he can be pushed any further.

The sound on the wind is too familiar by now, like a coat when the wind drags it open, like...birds, like air has just been _moved_ to make way for something else. One smooth tear of sound and Dean glares into the darkness rather than turn around.

Because he doesn't want to see.

He counts off the seconds, and then makes himself turn.

Dean knew he wasn't alone, but it doesn't stop his mouth from tightening when he finds Castiel close enough to touch. He leans back, leans away, settles against the car, the cold of the metal working its way through his back while the cold of the ground works its way up through his bare feet. The ground is wet between his toes, but he ignores it, he's good at ignoring things.

Castiel looks almost forlorn in his trench coat, like he got lost waiting for something, and can't find his way home. Wearing that stupid, helpless face, and it's the wrong face to put on something old, and purposeful, and unfeeling. It's too open, for all that Castiel has trouble putting expressions on it. It's just naturally...open. It's a face you should be able to trust.

It's not the sort of face that should demand obedience.

Someone told Dean he had the wrong face once, and he thinks he laughed it off at the time. But now, yeah, now he thinks he knows what that means.

Castiel, and his magical power to show up whenever Dean doesn't want him to, and to never be there when they need him. When he needs him, and the distinction shouldn't be important, but it is.

Dean wants to ask if he knows about this. Though he's not quite sure _how_ he wants to ask, whether he wants to be angry, to throw it in his face, or to feel guilty.

And that's truly messed up, to feel guilty about something he hasn't done yet. About something he _shouldn't_ do. Because taking what Castiel is, and the way he makes him feel, that complicated mess of emotion that sometimes strays so close to hope that it hurts him. Taking everything he's done, and everything he hasn't, that fragile thing that in some way links the absolutely impossible and him.

Taking that and putting it on paper, and making it all about _sex._

It makes him fucking angry.

And it makes him terrified, because he knows there's a tight little coil of shame under there. That _that's_ what Dean is, that that might be the only thing he understands. Dragging everything down to his level, making it _less_ , making it something that drifts far too close to obscene. And he hasn't even done anything, he hasn't so much as looked at him-

But he will.

Apparently he will.

Castiel is apparently waiting for him to speak, and Dean refuses to give him the satisfaction. He makes him wait, makes him stand there in silence. Let them play on his damn terms for once.

He looks away, stares back at the door of his room and wonders if Sam's still crushed into the pillow, if he's still sleeping.

He'll have to look at Castiel again eventually, he'll have to, he's not a child who can just stare into the darkness forever. He knows what's out there better than most. He should know well enough that if you don't face your fears head on they eat you in pieces.

He's spent longer learning that lesson than most.

So he turns his head, and looks at him.

For a face that normally shows nothing, Castiel's looks pretty damn complicated at the moment.

Of course Castiel knows, how could he _not_ know.

And now there are layers that weren't there before. Layers dragged off of a page he wishes he'd never read. Wrong in a way which is subtle but painfully sharp. As if writing on a page could ever make him human. Could ever make him something easier than what he is.

Instead it just makes him more frightening, and unknowable, and Dean hates it.

He wants to shout at him, he wants to be angry. He wants to demand to know what sort of future turns out like this.

But he knows at the end of it Castiel will just stare at him impassively, like he has no mind of his own.

That he'll accept whatever is written, blindly, _obediantly,_ without complaint. And that makes Dean feel sick in a way he has no trouble defining at all.

And just like that he wants to hit him for it. It's a quick, hot need to put something on that face. Which is a pretty damn screwed up reaction considering, considering everything. But he won't be _that,_ jesus christ, he won't be that.

He clenches his fists at his sides instead, exhales roughly and pretends his shaking is all to do with the cold. Because this is the angel who's been _trying,_ been pushing at the edges of what he can say, and what he can't. Tragically, blindly obedient in a way Dean hates.

But who still found a loophole for him, when he needed it. When he asked for it.

Dean wonders if he _knew_ then, if he knew yesterday.

He doesn't want to-

He pushes his hands into his pockets.

"What do I do?" he says slowly, finally, words hauled out of his throat like they hurt.

"I can't answer that," Castiel tells him, and there's no expression to go with the words, nothing at all.

"Can't or won't?"

"Can't," Castiel says gently, so gently Dean has absolutely no option of throwing it back in his face. He grits his teeth and bears it instead.

Because Dean can't, he _can't,_ even though he's read it three times. Because there's no way he could do that. When he's pretty sure even touching him will feel like blasphemy.

He hates himself, because part of him wants to.

"Can you even-" Dean stares into the darkness, can't look at Castiel's face, and can't finish, because he's a coward. "He should have just kept it to himself," he finishes

Because he'd never have known, and maybe that would have made it better.

But then Dean remembers the expression on Chuck's face, like he didn't want to give it to him. Like he'd rather be doing anything else, than handing it over. So maybe he'd also _written down_ that he gave it to him. Maybe he didn't have any choice in the matter either.

You can't screw fate after all.

Dean can't help the laugh, though it sounds brittle and thin.

Maybe the fact that it's there, written down in black and white, is like some sort of permission. That he's not only _allowed,_ he's supposed to, like that's just something he does, like that's something he can just do to _an angel._

Dean shakes his head.

And he's sick of standing out here _on his own._ Because damn it, he might as well be.

"This is not a good time for you to act like a mannequin, you know that right?" Dean can hear anger in his voice now. "Say something."

"What would you have me say?" Castiel says slowly.

"Tell me you _don't_ want that."

The moment Dean says it he wants to take it back. Because that would make it worse, so much _worse._ And the long silent pause makes Dean go cold inside.

If he says he doesn't have a choice, if he says _that,_ Dean will hit him, and no force in the world is going to stop him.

But then all the anger just drains out of him, like he can't hold it any more. He drags a breath, that's not entirely steady, then lifts a hand and rubs his face.

The winds drags past them both, and Dean pulls his shoulders in, but it still bites all the way through, makes him shiver.

"You're cold," Castiel says simply.

"Yeah," Dean says flatly, too tired to be anything other than honest. "Yeah, but people, we get used to it." There's more than a bite in there, because Castiel isn't people, he'll never be people.

Castiel's arm moves, hand turning to where Dean's hangs at his side. Dean pulls it away, defensive, protective, and something else he refuses to put a name to. There's a pause, as if considering, and then Castiel's hand follows, touches the back of his own.

There's no sensation, no magic, Dean's just not cold any more, he can still feel the wind, the air down his throat, it just doesn't seem to touch his skin now.

He breathes out.

Doesn't move away from the press of skin on the back of his hand.

"I don't-" Dean starts, then doesn't know how to finish.

"I know," Castiel says quietly.

  



End file.
